A riot of colour, glitter and gold leaf ... it can only be paintings by Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is one of the most prominent painters in Britain today but the only thing many people know about him is that he stands his paintings on balls of elephant dung. At first he brought the dung from Zimbabwe, then from a local zoo.
Of course there is much more to the work of this artist who has been given the accolade of a retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain even though, at the age of 41, he is still young.
The elephant dung thing has been with him since he graduated from the Royal College of Art. Born in Manchester to Nigerian parents, he developed his talents through polytechnics and the Royal College. And it might be added, Berlin, today the Mecca for all young artists.
In time out from his studies he went to Zimbabwe and became interested in the way hunters tracked their prey by studying their excrement.
So the dung he uses suggests a way of tracking his origins, because he was very proud of being black. At art school he was a young black male in a school that wasn't full of young black males and it gave him what he calls "an intense awareness of the differences between what I would represent and what others might represent".
Represent is an interesting word in this context because, right from the beginning, he was anxious to be the voice of painting and for making beautiful objects, which is rather against the grain of most young graduates from art schools anywhere.
After graduation he adopted aspects of culture such as hip hop music which gave him an assertive vibe about blackness.
The work in his show at the Tate begins with a fetish object - a black ball of dung, equipped with a mouth, real teeth and dreadlocks of his own hair.
As his painting developed he absorbed a confluence of influences which included the mystical artist/poet William Blake whose dream-like images gave him systems of composition.
The paintings are brilliant in every sense of the word. They combine religion and sex, and the technique is based on vivid colour, frenetic rhythms and a surface energised by scattered glitter. He uses a mysterious technique all his own where forms are filled in with raised dots of colour. Here and there lumps of dung are attached to the canvas, joyously decorated sometimes with coloured map pins.
The first room contains works that are intricate dances of these raised dots like ropes of pearls against a background of colour.
They are as dancing and lyrical as the best work of Jackson Pollock, yet the colour has an extraordinary intensity. There are also quirky things. A dance of yellow on red has in the midst of its intricacies collaged images of breasts and nipples cut from porn mags. It is called Popcorn Tits. Then come the paintings of glamour girls, all lips, hair and big bosoms with titles like Foxy Roxy.
A painting in this manner called The Holy Virgin Mary is a huge totemic figure in blue with a brilliant golden halo and plenty of glitter, giving it tremendous presence. She is black and she is accompanied by a collage of crotch shots cut from lurid magazines. When it was exhibited in New York in 1996, the then-mayor Rudy Giuliani said it was horribly offensive and threatened to withdraw funding. Whether he objected to the fact the figure was black or to the collage was not entirely clear.
This fuss added a touch of notoriety to Ofili's rapidly rising reputation which was recognised with the Turner Prize in 1998. His winning painting was an unusually sombre portrait of Doreen Lawrence, whose son Stephen was stabbed to death.
His achievement was also recognised by an installation at the Tate which is part of this retrospective show. Called The Upper Room, with its reference to the Last Supper, it is approached through a narrow dark corridor that slows the viewer down and increases the effect of the sudden dazzling sensation when you enter the room. Here, you encounter 13 paintings, all except one featuring a monkey god carrying a chalice. Although these paintings all contain the same figure, the background in each is distinctly different in colour and in feeling.
They are a gorgeous riot of foliage, colour and rhythm with raised dots adding a strong element of texture. The effect is ritualistic and overwhelming. On the end wall, the 13th painting contains masses of glitter and gold leaf which makes it a blaze of colour and light. Collectively these paintings make the room an amazing experience to be in.
In 2003 Ofili was the British representative at the Venice Biennale. The exhibition is completed by recent work which he calls Blue Riders where the pervading colour is blue and the dung balls have been abandoned.
The title is a witty reference to the famous Expressionist group in the early 20th century.
The group of blue paintings are rather more grim than last century's forbears. The joy and wit of his work, though, is apparent again in groups of splendid drawings.
Vivid watercolour drawings in bright colour make great play with the shapes of Afro hairdos. The various black shapes of the hair are contrasted with the lusciously vivid colours of their garments.
Another series of watercolours are inventive variations on dark female bodies.
The same bodies appear in a group of drawings called Seven Brides for Seven Bros. These bodies are defined by lines of dots and each dot is tiny Afro head.
Ofili has moved to Trinidad in the West Indies and his latest paintings continue his brilliant colour and sexy shapes which curve and swoop to make tense situations between men and women.
The elephant dung is no longer needed. Recognition of his immense achievement is established and he doesn't need to leave a spoor.
AT THE GALLERIES
What: Chris Ofili - paintings
Where and When: Tate Britain, London, to May 16
TJ says: A retrospective of vivid painting that makes it abundantly clear why Ofili has achieved his high status in British painting.
For gallery listings, see www.nzherald.co.nz/go/artlistings
